Hanging on for dear life. To the job. To the persona. To the routine. To all of the THINGS. Hanging on for dear life because goodness knows your heart's not in it anymore. It's only about suriving.
Then there are times, places, things that we want to hang onto forever, moments that make our hearts soar with pride, love, comfort. Like a favorite song playing to a perfect drive, we wish it could last our whole lives long, but we can't keep those moments. They come and go. That's why they're moments. And beautiful people, too, are like the beautiful moments they fill. But the letting go always feels premature with things of such beauty, I suppose.
I will be turning twenty-five in a little over a month. Quarter way through a centennial. Old enough to be getting this adulthood thing figured out. Young enough for mistakes to be allowed. Theoretically, it seems to me that this should be neither the age of letting go prematurely nor hanging on for dear life.
But that's theory. We base theory on life. Life doesn't plot accordingly.
For myself, and so many others that I know, our quarter-centennial lives have already defied said theory. Life has not been smooth. It's been a rollar coaster of tightly packed highs which are too quickly over, followed by incredible drops which left us feeling like we left some of our guts somewhere else.
I graduated college and got my first grown up job at the age of 20. I got engaged and married at age 21. We moved into our first apartment, both working hard scraping by during our first year of marriage. I got promoted that year, and so did Dane. It was stressful, but good stress. A lot of change in a short amount of time at a young age. I was the youngest person I knew to be so many exits down the "super highway of life".
Then mama got sick. Six months of hell is basically what that was. And what followed was limbo.
Following June 18, this year has been kind of lost to me. I'm sure I'll always look back on it as a fuzzy time of hanging on and wondering just who the heck I'm really supposed to be and what is the point.
I've realized that the only thing that really matters in life is to love God and love His People. I've learned that super highways don't matter. I felt like I was on track, doing everything "right," but none of it matters. Life is not a highway. It will always be a roller coaster. Ultimately no one cares if you graduate college a year early or are twenty years younger than everyone else at your job. People will care if you took time to love them.
However, I have also found more moments of joy because of what I've learned. I brace myself not just for the lows, but for the highs too, wanting to take in every detail of them and cherish them. Sometimes I mourn them before they are even over, which is just something that comes from being hurt, I think. There are people whose love has been like a shot of adrennaline to my slow heart his year, and the memory of that love, which existed in the midst of the lows, is more valuable than it ever would have been in the highs.
In the meanwhile, I am done with super highways. They are not going where I am.
I want my life to be about:
Loving God, Family, Friends, Strangers, Enemies.
The adventure of true love and my marriage with a wonderful man.
Accept new challenges in relationships with others.
Traveling and exploration.
Growing creatively: reading, writing, and working on my projects as well as my mother's.
Being healthier: continuing to meet the fitness goals I have for myself.
Pursuing the loves God has placed in my heart.
Seeing beautiful things and making beautiful things.
Soaking in the highs.
Finding love in the lows.
